Parashat Beshalach
By: Bernard Waiman

Whether one considers the Yam Suf as the Sea of Reeds or the Red Sea there is no doubt that this week's sedra records the first ever tsunami. How can "the depths cover them and they drop into the deep like a stone"? This could not have occurred in what is, at best, a shallow sea or probably a glorified swamp. The Midrash, commenting on the verse "This is my G-d and I will glorify him", says that all the Children of Israel actually saw G-d at the Red Sea. This is why the Shira records "Hashem ish milchamah hashemshemo".

The name of G-d which we do not pronounce is the essence of His being: it has to do with the word to be and is a causative form. G-d showed at the crossing of the Red sea that he makes things happen. This is the message from the Shira which we say every day at the start of Shacharit. We say "Blessed be he who spoke and the world was created". As the muse remarked and the Egyptians discovered "man proposes but G-d disposes!!"